I know it's the Mom in me that has me worried about one of the chickens once again. Golden, as we call her has been listless and well to be graphic has the runs. Yellow runs at that. I'm patiently waiting for the results of a poop sample. If you had asked me 2 years ago if I'd ever be this concerned over a chicken I would have emphatically said, NO!
I've come to love my chickens. I mean who wouldn't? I raised them from day old chicks with lots of TLC. They feed us a beautiful array of colorful eggs. My extended family is loving it as well since I keep them in free eggs. I've lost more than a few now to snakes, weasels, dogs and illness. I'm praying Golden will be OK. The thought is that she has a simple case of parasites and if she doesn't die before the diagnosis I should be able to cure her easily. I just need to know what to do. I met the animal doctor at the Animal health facility in Lynchburg. Mostly they diagnose what animals died from. I'm hoping she will be able to help me before that happens here. The Dr. was a great resource for me. Though she readily admitted she didn't know much about chickens she was far more helpful than the local vets. Seems the local vets don't know crap about chickens. I thought living out in the country would mean the vets here would know about farm animals. As is usual with assumptions, well you know the saying.
Let me just say that I'm completely exhausted after deciding to clean the coop alone. After shoveling and lifting bails of straw and hay and 50lb bags of lime and pushing the wheel barrow from the van to the coop like a million times I practically had to crawl up the steps to the back door. Then to top it all off I couldn't get the zipper to unzip on my coat. So in my weakened state I tried to lift my coat over my head to remove it. Well, my arms were so sore that I think it took me 30 minutes to get out of that coat. How sad is that? So I'm taking a leave of absence for a while. As if I could.
There is a MOUNTAIN of laundry to do,3 toilets to clean, dishes to wash,sweeping to do, floors to mop, carpets to vacuum, cooking to be done and school work to be taught. I'm sure I'm leaving out lots but you get the idea. I'm not sure how I'm supposed to do all those things when I can't lift my arms above waist level.
